Fashion Fraud Read online

  ej12girlhero.com

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Up until that morning, at recess to be exact, Emma Jacks had been really looking forward to the party. Eve, one of the girls who started at St Cree Primary last term, was having a dance birthday party and the whole class had been invited. The whole class; that was good. It meant people didn’t rush around finding out who was invited and who wasn’t. No one was disappointed, no one was surprised: everyone was excited. And that’s how recess had started. Emma was sitting outside with Hannah, Elle and Isi, her best friends, and they were discussing the party.

  ‘It’s so cool that the whole class is going,’ said Emma. ‘And a dance party, how fun will that be!’

  Elle, who loved dancing, opened her mouth wide but no sound came out. That normally meant she had an idea. The girls waited and finally Elle spoke. ‘We can make up a new dance routine!’ she cried. ‘You know, one of those dances where everyone lines up and does the same steps at the same time. Imagine the whole class doing it together! How much fun would that be!’

  ‘That would be sooooo cool!’ cried Isi, who was the most excitable of the group. ‘Maybe we could take glow sticks!’ she nearly shouted. The other kids were starting to look at her but Isi was on a roll. ‘And we could wear disco gear and crazy hair—maybe silver! And we could …’

  Nema and Laila were walking past as Isi was talking. They must have overheard. It would have been hard not to.

  ‘It’s not a fancy dress party, Isi,’ said Laila.

  ‘Then again Isi always looks a bit of a clown anyway,’ whispered Nema to Laila in one of those pretend whispers that people could hear. ‘Dizzy Isi, the dancing clown!’ Nema laughed and Laila joined in.

  Laila was new to the class too, and she wasn’t the sort of girl who would invite the whole class to her party. She didn’t seem to care about anyone else’s feelings. She would talk about people behind their backs and then act as if they were best friends later on. When a person she was talking about walked up, she went silent in a way that made it clear that she had been talking about that person. And she had become best friends with Nema, the class mean girl. The only thing worse than one mean girl was, obviously, two.

  ‘Oh be quiet you two!’ said Emma. ‘Isi looks really good in bright colours.’ She was getting pretty good at standing up to Nema when she was mean—and Nema gave her plenty of opportunities for practice. Besides, it was true. Bright colours looked fabulous against Isi’s deep olive skin, which she got from her Italian mother. Orange was her favourite colour. Nema on the other hand seemed to wear black most of the time—black jeans, black t-shirts and black skirts.

  ‘Bright colours are so babyish though,’ snapped Nema who clearly didn’t like being stood up to. ‘And so not the style this season. When I was in Paris …’

  ‘Here we go again,’ whispered Hannah to Emma. ‘How many times is Nema going to show off about her trip to Paris?’

  Nema had gone on an unexpected trip to Paris in the last school holidays. Her mum was called away for her work at the last moment and Nema was allowed to go with her. She had come back even bossier and the self-appointed expert on all things fashion.

  ‘When I was in Paris,’ continued Nema, ‘it was all about wild animal skins—zebras, cheetahs and really cool accessories made from rhino horn. I’ve got this really expensive bangle …’

  ‘That’s disgusting,’ cried Emma.

  ‘It’s cruel,’ cried Hannah.

  ‘Real animals?’ asked Elle, horrified.

  ‘Yeah, of course,’ replied Nema. ‘Keeping it real.’

  ‘You wouldn’t want to be fake,’ said Laila. ‘When we go back … ow, Nema!’

  Emma looked at Nema. Had she just poked Laila? Why?

  ‘Anyway I’m getting a new dress for the party,’ said Laila.

  ‘Yeah, course,’ said Nema. ‘Who isn’t?’

  Emma blushed. She wasn’t. She knew it wasn’t even worth asking her mum. Anyway, she’d already had a few ideas and Elle was coming over after school so they could try things on.

  ‘What are you wearing, Emma?’ asked Nema. ‘One of your “creations” I suppose?’

  Emma blushed. She liked putting different bits of clothing together, often pieces you wouldn’t think would go. She liked adding stuff like ribbons and buttons to bits of clothing.

  ‘You always look great, Em,’ said Isi. ‘You have a way of putting things together that’s so … so …’

  ‘So what?’ asked Emma.

  ‘So you!’

  ‘Is that a good thing?’

  ‘Yes! It’s a great thing. You have your own style.’

  ‘Can I just say one word?’ said Nema, who was going to anyway. ‘Ribbon.’

  Aaaarrrgghh! Emma should have known Nema would bring that up. There had been a talent concert at school and Emma, Hannah, Isi and Elle’s band, Squishy Music, had performed and Emma had put together the girls’ costumes. She had bought skirts from the op-shop and stuck on extra buttons and strips of lace and, because they were a bit big, she had tied huge ribbons around the waist. They looked fabulous but after the show when everyone was milling around, Emma’s ribbon had come undone. She wasn’t sure how it had happened (although come to think of it, Nema had been standing close by) but she was so excited about the success of the talent show that she didn’t notice her skirt was around her feet. Until, that is, Hannah, Isi and Elle pointed downwards. Emma looked down to see that she was standing in her underpants.

  ‘Who cares about that? No one really saw,’ cried Isi, loyally defending her friend. ‘And the skirts were great—different, so much better than wearing what everyone else wears. And, in a way, it was sort of funny, Em, wasn’t it? It was like your seaweed costume!’

  ‘Thanks for bringing that up, Is,’ muttered Emma. That had been even worse. There had been an Under the Sea party and Emma had made an amazing cloak with seaweed-like strips floating off it. Well, she thought it was amazing until she arrived and everyone else had come as mermaids and seahorses. Emma’s experimenting had led to a few disasters and she didn’t want another one at the dance party. Perhaps she should just wear something more normal …

  ‘Then again,’ said Nema, moving the topic back onto herself, ‘I might wear my new Alicia Noir dress from Paris. It’s from her African Shadows Collection.’

  The girls all looked open-mouthed at Nema. New dresses? Paris designers? Suddenly what they thought would be a really fun dance party seemed to be shaping up to be a fashion contest.

  ‘Anyway,’ Nema went on, ‘I’m not saying what I’ll wear. It’s a secret.’

  Emma looked at Nema. She knew the bossy, dark-haired girl had another secret. Nema had begun working for evil agency SHADOW.

  How did Emma know that? Because Emma Jacks, ten and a budding if not always completely successful fashion designer, was also Agent EJ12 who worked for the secret agency SHINE, whose job it was to stop SHADOW.

  The last year at SHINE had been EJ12’s best yet. She had won the agency’s Shining Stars Spy of the Year award, her friend Isi had joined SHINE’s science and invention division, and she had been on a mission with both her mum and grandma. And now it looked like SHINE might have recruited Elle as well. Her friend had won an athletics competition and later received a letter instructing her to go to a light shop to collect her prize. To an ordinary person, that might just have seemed weird but a SHINE agent knew it was an instruction to report to HQ. The agency was busy recruiting.

  They weren’t the only one. SHADOW also seemed to be training more agents, as EJ had discovered on her mission last Christmas. Back then, there had been lots of young girls helping SHADOW agent Tiffany Glass steal diamonds from a window display—one of those girls had been Nema. Not that Emma was completely surprised because Nema seemed quite a good fit for an evil agency. Recently Emma had been noticing that Nema was away from school quite often. The reason she always gave was that she was travelling with her mum who worked overseas a lot, but Emma was very suspicious. Had Nema finished her training? Was her trip to Paris something to do with SHADOW? Was there a reason Nema spent so much time in Ms Black’s office? And was Ms Black a SHADOW agent or was her name just a coincidence? Emma wasn’t so sure. As one of the many SHINE mottoes said, ‘Coincidences are clues waiting to be caught’. So Emma and Isi kept a close eye on Nema. Trouble was, that made it hard to avoid her mean comments. Like now. Nema seemed to have a knack of making Emma doubt herself.

  ‘You could just try being normal, you know, and wear what everyone else wears,’ snapped Nema.

  ‘You say such dumb things, Nema,’ said Hannah.

  But Emma wondered. Maybe it wasn’t dumb.

  Elle and Emma were in Emma’s bedroom after school. Most of Emma’s clothes were on the bed and a whole bag of Elle’s clothes were scattered over the floor. The girls were furiously trying things on, taking things off, trying them on again.

  ‘There are some cool things here!’ cried Elle. ‘We can swap things around, and then you do your thing and we’ll look awesome!’

  ‘Really? You think so, Elles?’ asked Emma, who wasn’t so sure. ‘But Nema will make a point of telling everyone that they’r
e not new.’

  ‘Maybe, but you don’t normally worry about what Nema says.’

  ‘I know but now there’s Laila too. It’s like having two Nemas! And maybe they’re right and we’re wrong. Maybe my outfits are weird. Maybe we’ll look silly and just embarrass ourselves in front of everyone—again.’

  Then the bedroom door opened and Emma’s mum poked her head around the door. ‘Having fun, girls?’ she asked.

  ‘Sort of,’ said Emma. ‘Mum, are you really sure that I can’t have a new dress for the dance party?’

  ‘Yes, Emma, I am really, completely sure,’ replied her mum in a voice Emma knew not to argue with. Her mum’s voice softened as she continued. ‘Come on, Em, you have lots of nice clothes and you have a flair for putting things together. I bet you could make a really groovy combination of gear for the party!’

  Elle laughed.

  ‘Groovy? Gear?’ groaned Emma. ‘Mum! No one says groovy gear!’

  ‘I do,’ said Emma’s mum, sniffing slightly. ‘Perhaps you could start a new trend?’

  ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea,’ said Emma. She could imagine the fun Nema and Laila would have with ‘groovy gear’. She also felt her mum had gone off the topic. ‘All the other girls are getting new dresses.’

  ‘All?’ asked Emma’s mum, her eyebrows raised. ‘Elle, are you getting a new dress?’

  ‘No,’ said Elle looking apologetically at Emma. ‘But I’d like one.’

  ‘Is Hannah getting a new dress?’ continued Emma’s mum.

  ‘Um, no, I don’t think so but maybe …’ Em’s voice trailed off.

  ‘Do you want to know what I think?’ said Emma’s mum. She didn’t wait for the girls to reply. ‘I think you’re worrying about what some silly girls at school might say.’

  Emma and Elle looked at each other. Had Emma’s mum been listening?

  ‘Mums know stuff, you know,’ she went on. ‘And we remember mean girls. When I was at school there was a girl in my class, her name was Thea, and she thought she was the boss of everyone. She would tell people what to do, what to say, what to wear.’

  ‘Sounds just like Nema,’ groaned Emma.

  ‘But you know what?’ said Emma’s mum. ‘In the end, everyone just stopped listening so Thea stopped doing it.’

  ‘Nema doesn’t show any sign of stopping,’ said Elle glumly.

  ‘Well, you just have to ignore her anyway. Follow your instincts, be yourselves, not what some silly girl says you should be, and you’ll have a ball. And remember,’ she added as she closed the door behind her, ‘things are always better with a tidy room.’

  ‘Thanks, Mum!’ groaned Emma. But she had listened to what she had said, not so much the bit about the room, but the other bit. It was just that sometimes it was easier to give in and go with things.

  ‘Come on,’ said Elle. ‘Your mum’s right. Let’s dress our way!’

  So Emma and Elle started to try on clothes again, mixing and matching, even mismatching, different pieces. They were having a ball and they forgot all about new dresses and Nema and Laila.

  Emma took a pink skirt that she had and sewed a white singlet onto the top. She cut out a heart and glued it onto the singlet. She looked at it critically: it needed something wrapped around the waist to hide the sewing marks. She spotted a blue ribbon; did she dare do it again? She put on the dress and tied on the ribbon and turned around to show Elle.

  ‘Wow! How did you do that?’ cried Elle. ‘That looks so cool! It looks like the one Jemma E. wore on High School Dance Party, only better!’

  Emma blushed. ‘It’s not that good, Elle. And I’m worried about the ribbon. Maybe it’s not the right colour.’

  ‘I think it’s amazing!’ cried Elle. ‘You have to wear that! It’s so cool and it’s so you! Now you have to help me!’

  And then they were off again, ferreting around in their clothes, trying things on, and looking for something fabulous for Elle to wear. Everything seemed okay and Emma started to look forward to the party again. But back at school the next day, it didn’t take long for her confidence to waver.

  The girls had finished netball practice. Emma, Hannah, Isi and Elle were all in the A-team, the St Cree Wildcats, and they worked hard at practice to make sure they stayed there. They were playing the B-team in a practice match and when Ms Tenga blew the whistle they were exhausted and more than a little sweaty.

  Nema and Laila were in the B-team and not at all happy about it. When the A-team girls came up to shake hands after the match, Nema refused.

  ‘Ew!’ she exclaimed. ‘Talk about a smell. No thank you!’

  ‘At least we know how to shake hands,’ said a voice behind Emma. It was Eve. She was in the A-team as goal attack. Because Eve was new to the school, Emma was only just starting to get to know her and thought she seemed nice. Now she really wanted to know her better: anyone who stood up to Nema had to be good!

  ‘It’s only a practice match,’ hissed Laila.

  ‘Well, you need the practice,’ said Eve.

  The other girls laughed. It was rude of Nema and Laila not to shake hands.

  ‘It’s only stupid netball,’ snapped Nema, rounding on Emma, Hannah, Isi and Elle. It had become ‘stupid’ netball when Nema didn’t make the A-team. ‘You all think you are so smart in the A-team but you will be in the D-team of fashion at the party. D for disaster!’

  ‘No we won’t,’ said Elle, hotly. ‘You should see what Emma’s made!’

  ‘You made a dress?’ said Nema. ‘Another experiment?’

  ‘No, it is so cool,’ Elle went on. ‘It’s this singlet …’

  Emma knew Elle was trying to help but she was sort of making things worse.

  ‘Elle, it’s okay I think maybe I’ll wear …’

  ‘I think it sounds really cool,’ said Eve. ‘I wish I could do that.’

  ‘I think Emma will be a famous designer one day,’ said Isi enthusiastically.

  ‘Whatever,’ interrupted Nema. ‘You know it’s a dance party, Emz.’

  Emma hated it when Nema called her that, pretending to be her friend.

  Nema gave a sickly smile. ‘It’s not a craft party. I think …’

  Arrrrggghhh! Emma couldn’t stand another day of Nema going on and on at everyone, deciding who should do what, what was ‘cool’, who was ‘cool’.

  Piinngg!

  Emma’s phone flashed indigo.

  Thank goodness! she thought. Saved by the mission alert!

  Emma looked across to Isi, wondering if SHINE would call IJ12 as well. She hoped so; it had been fun going on a mission with a friend. Isi checked her phone but shook her head at Emma.

  The bell went and everyone headed back towards the classrooms. Everyone except Emma, who went in the other direction, towards the girls’ toilets. From there she could access the SHINE Mission Tube that would take her to SHINE HQ.

  ‘Where are you going?’ demanded Nema.

  ‘Just to the toilet,’ replied Emma.

  ‘You’ll get into trouble. The bell’s gone.’

  ‘Oh, Nema,’ cried Emma, ‘mind your own business!’ Turning away, she continued to the toilets, not noticing Nema talking to one of the teachers.

  ‘Emma Jacks, shouldn’t you be going to class?’ came a sharp voice. It was Ms Black.

  Emma turned around quickly. ‘Yes, um I am, but I was just going to the toilet,’ answered Emma.

  ‘You should have thought of that earlier,’ said Ms Black. ‘There’s no time now. Go back to class please or I’ll …’

  ‘Oh there you are, Ms Black.’ It was Ms Tenga. ‘Have you got a few moments? I just need a quick word. It won’t take long.’ Before Ms Black had a chance to protest, Ms Tenga took her by the arm. ‘Excuse us, Emma, and do hurry, won’t you?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Emma, breathing a sigh of relief and dashing off. Moments later, she pushed open the door to the girls’ toilets. She checked to see if she was alone and, once she had confirmed that she was, walked to the last cubicle on the right, went in and locked the door behind her. Emma sat on the toilet seat and took out her phone, inserting it into a tiny, almost unnoticeable, socket on the side of the toilet roll holder. The phone clicked in and a message flashed on to her screen.